The most refreshing presentation I got to see while attending the 2nd international SOA Symposium in the World Trade Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands was called “A survival kit in business model innovation”.
This presentation was about the really great inventors of great business models, starting with Henry Ford who invented the assembly line and mass production T-Ford and ending with Google who… well everyone knows that story. The message in all of this was that we can talk about new IT stuff like BPR, BPM, SOA, etc., including BOHICA (Bend Over Here It Comes Again :-)) to business people forever, but in the end in order to facilitate the business agility needed by great businesses we will need flexilibity, service and thus a Service Oriented Architecture throughout our business no matter what it’s called.
The presenter also mentioned MTBS – Mean Time Between Surprises. MTBS is a great driver for SOA. The shorter the MTBS, the greater the need for SOA.
We should not talk about technology when selling SOA to customers. We should talk about their businesses, how the approach and architecture style that SOA encompasses can help their business become more agile so that they can become the next great, sustainable success.
Or, as Wayne Gretzky (Hockey Legend) said: “Go where the puck is going, not where the puck has been”. The only way to be able to do that as a business is integrate the Service Approach throughout your business. And SOA is just a piece of that puzzle that helps your IT infrastructure align with that approach.
indaField 